As a respite – and perhaps as a protection - from submitting to the interminable interviews, he found himself in demand for first-person pieces in film and fan magazines.

Editors, accustomed to inconsequential pap and froth, latched on to the discovery that this late-comer to the business had his own mind and could be refreshingly candid, even to the point of snapping at Rank - which, after all, was the hand that fed him. The problem for us at this distance is to know how many of the hundreds of column inches that appeared under his name were actually composed by him, were ‘ghosted’ by a trusted journalist or by a sympathetic employee in the publicity office, or, as sometimes happened, were crafted by Anthony Forwood, who by now shared Dirk’s life and who also had an infectious way with words. Incontrovertibly, though, Dirk was the ‘author’ of a five-week series in Woman magazine, to which he gave long interviews and his signature for use with the title ‘My Life Story’. It was published early in 1961, a year momentous enough personally for Dirk because he turned 40, but even more significant professionally because it saw him make Victim and cut his contractual ties with Rank. It was a good moment to take stock, and he did so with vigour. Evidently, this actor could write convincingly and at length.
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